An intern, a big story and an angry MP

It was some time in 2016 when Jane, not her real name, published a story that almost made her abandon her budding journalism career.

Her newspaper had published a story about a confrontation between a widow and a prominent Member of Parliament who is currently holding a senior government position.

Jane was just an intern who had barely spent six months since joining one of the mainstream media stations, Nakuru office.

To her, a story about a poor granny who was on the verge of losing her parcel of land to the mighty politician was a serious scoop.

True to her anticipation, the story was given prominence in the newspaper which splashed it on one of its main pages.

As she was still responding to the many congratulations messages for the impressive story, she was shocked to see a group of goons led by the cantankerous lawmaker making their way into the office after breaching the security code at the entrance.

Burning with rage, the MP proceeded directly to the regional editor’s desk with a piece of the newspaper in his hands and demanded to know who the reporter was.

The reporter who was in the office froze with fear as the MP barked rhetorical questions, accusing the media house of publishing biased stories.

“Who wrote this story? How can you publish lies to mislead people? The reporter must tell us where she got this information,” retorted the MP

The editor who read the environment decided to save the intern and told the MP that the author of the story was not in.

After ranting for some minutes, the legislator led his goons out of the office, vowing to take legal action against the media house and the reporter.

He never did.

These are just some of the challenges that journalists go through in the course of their work of disseminating information.

It is an incident that all journalists in the region had to condemn.